Chill
by Henrika
Summary: He sees the world around him shatter.
1. Fevered Memories

Chill  
By Henrika

Henrika- Another story dredged from the ruins of my old notebooks. This one was actually pretty recent, but I've just been to lazy to type it. (Like most of my notebooks. Heh. Whoops?) The format is kind of bizarre, but there will be a second chapter to wrap things up. Enjoy and review!

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It was the cool hand against his forehead that brought his mind out of its temporary blackness. He tried desperately to figure out why the hand was so cold, why his hair felt wet, why his body felt frozen even though he could feel the heat racing through his veins. His memory struggled to kick and he started seeing tiny fragments.

Al, his armored pieces lying in fragments beside him.

The murky sky.

The frigid rain.

Someone yelling his name.

The hand against his forehead.

The acrid tang of alchemy.

Scar.

He wanted to get up and run, like the screaming voice was telling him to do. _But Al?_ He thought. _What about Al?_ He remembered the deal he had struck; his life for the safety of his brother's. _It's an equivalent exchange._

The hand was gone.

Scar was slamming his hand into Alphonse's armor.

The steel was shattering.

Al was falling.

And he couldn't help wondering whether the date of death on Alphonse's grave would bear today's date or the day Al lost his body.

_The day you killed your little brother. And your mother._ A voice in his mind added.

The hand was back; chill against his skin.

Al was screaming at him to run.

_But Al just died, didn't he?_ He wondered, confused.

_Alchemy is equivalent exchange, by your own words. What have you given for your knowledge? Why do you corrupt the world by changing it?_

He wondered if Scar was an alchemist. But that couldn't be right. _Why is he trying to kill me for being an alchemist and then quoting alchemic principles?_

Mother collapsed on the floor.

Her grip slackening and her eyes dimming as she asked for flowers.

The gasping pile of flesh and bones on the floor that looked at him and held his eyes.

The blood.

Everywhere there was blood.

He tried to sit up and the hand held him down. _Just do it already._ He silently begged the man.

Do you know what will happen to Al? Will you abandon him? Will you be just like your father?

He snarled at the voice, but it continued.

That's your blood that makes up the seal that binds his soul here. Will he die when you do? Will he be able to survive without you maintaining that seal with your energy? Will the seal hold when you and your science go to the grave? Even if it does, what then? You're the only one who can fix him. You're his only family. What will the military do when they find such an interesting specimen? Mustang can't protect him unless he's got you.

"Stop it!" He yelled. "Just shut up!" He tried to curl up, to put his hands over his head and cry like he used to when he was a very young child. The hand wouldn't let him.

You're still a child. The voice intoned.

He fought the hands that now gripped his form.

Thousands of tiny black hands.

The Gate.

So much information.

The Truth.

Scar.

"What do you want from me?" He screamed at the hands. "What do you want me to do?"  
Al's scream echoes everywhere around him, a thousand different screams he knows he has caused. His brother's body is being taken away, his armor splintering, Scar stepping forward on the pavement. "What am I supposed to do?" His voice cracks violently and he wonders if there are tears mixing in with the rain. The hand is on his forehead again, bitterly cold.

And the voice is different when is answers, familiar somehow, but faraway. "Live."

He sees the world around him shatter.

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Henrika- I just kind of like the last line. Then again, I know what it all means, so that could have _some_ bearing on it.


	2. Cold Hands and Idle Comfort

Chill  
By Henrika

Henrika- And now for the shocking twist of this story...!

Enjoy and review!

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"Full Metal." The man paused. "Edward."

Ed opened his eyes and shut them quickly as they were invaded by the harsh light and bright white color of his surroundings. "What…?"

"You're in the hospital Full Metal."

"Huh?" He tried to look at the speaker and failed miserably as the light stung his eyes and forced them shut again. He heard the vague pattering of rain outside and shuddered.

"Was…" He swallowed thickly. "It Scar? What happened?"

There was a prolonged pause. "Full metal, the incident with Scar occurred months ago."

"What?" Ed's eyes snapped open and he struggled to sit up, but the Colonel (he realized it _was_ the Colonel) held him down.

"Easy. You're not strong enough to be moving around yet." Against his will, Ed settled down, but remained perfectly alert.

"Then why am I in the hospital?" He demanded. "Where's Al?"

"Alphonse is picking up your things from your hotel."

"Oh."

"And you're in the hospital because you haven't been taking care of yourself, _again._ You collapsed in the rain just as you reached headquarters. You've been out ever since."

"Oh." The word came out small and meek, which reminded Roy uncomfortably of Al bursting into his office with the gaunt, tiny, pale-looking figure that was his older brother. "And you said Scar…"

"Was months ago; though we still haven't captured him." Mustang completed. "Was that what you were dreaming about?" He asked, making the logical jump between the subject and the fragments of speech that had spilled from the boy's lips in his sleep.

"Dream?" Ed wondered aloud hazily, his mind drifting as his head fell back against the pillows.

"You were thrashing about in your sleep and fighting me so much…it scared me." The last part was barely a whisper, but the entire sentence pierced its way into Edward's steadily fogging thought process.

_So the hand was Mustang's. And I was dreaming about Scar and the Gate and Mom and Al. And…the Colonel…_ He mused on that for a moment, reviewing the fragments of that nightmare that were fast slipping away from him. he ran his flesh hand through his unbound hair, realizing it was very damp and chill from his own sweat. _That must have been the Colonel then._ He decided, recognizing the voice that had snapped the dream apart. _He was the one that told me to "live". Weird._

And then Ed's thoughts ground to a halt as he finally examined the whispered part of Roy's last sentence. _He was **scared**_ _for me?_ The blonde looked over to where the Colonel was anxiously fiddling with straightening out his sheets. He looked twice, just to confirm that it was the cold, smirking, indomitable bastard that was Colonel Roy Mustang. _Yeah, it's him all right. And he comforted me. He stayed with me and he worried about me._

A voice in his head whispered, _he's just making sure his dog is well enough to fight._ Ed calmly brushed the voice aside, the last bits of nightmare going with it.

_He actually cares about something other than himself. _Ed leaned further back into the pillows, trying to convince himself the sudden dizzy feeling was from his fever.

"Ed?"

"I think I'm going to go back to sleep." He felt the words slip from his mouth. A sudden irrational fear seized him as he thought of all the tiny hands latching onto him in the Gate. "Will you stay?"

"Of course Full Metal."

"Thanks. Sorry I worried you." Ed didn't know who was more surprised by his words as he fell asleep; the Colonel or himself.

Roy smiled gently and stood up. "Always making people worried Edward; still just a kid trying too hard to be an adult." He paused, then went to the room's tiny sink and washed his hands in warm water. "I'm just surprised you didn't yell at me for having cold hands. He smiled again and returned to his seat, drawing Ed's human hand from under the covers and into both of his own; warming the clammy flesh. "Sleep well Full Metal. I'll protect you as long as I can."

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Henrika- It has to suck when your memories can easily be your nightmares. And Mustang was being half-sappy on me again. Agh!


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